Comments on: REVIEW: Shadowline (The Starfishers Trilogy, Volume 1) by Glen Cook

By: George

George — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 13:39:26 +0000

The story behind shadowline is the story of Ragnarok from Norse mythology set in space. The Iron Fortress is Valhalla, Gnaeus Storm is Odin and each of his children corresponds to one of Odin’s children (you can tell which one by looking at the first letter, they match). The two ravenshrikes correspond to Odin ravens, Huginn and Muninn and his one eye is a feature that Odin has. His second in command corresponds to Tyr as can be seen from the fact that he only has one hand. Michael Dee is Loki and his children, once again, share a first letter with each of Loki’s children (Fearchild is Fenrir, Helga is Hel, Helga’s world is Hel: the realm).

One of my favourite little moments is the death of Baldr by his blind brother Höðr, in Norse mythology, Baldr’s mother has prophetic dreams of his impending death so she makes every object on Earth vow never to hurt him. She does not get the vow from mistletoe because (depending on the source) it is too young or nonthreatening. Loki hears of this and makes a spear (or arrow in some cases) out of mistletoe and gives it to Höðr. The gods play a game, not that Baldr is immune to all of those things of throwing deadly objects at Baldr and Höðr, not knowing that he is holding a spear of mistletoe, throws that at him and kills him.

This story is recounted almost exactly in the book with the twins (I cannot remember their names) and was one of the things that made me absolutely love it.

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 04:05:22 +0000

I just cant get into this book. It flips from present to past and some chapters small but just not gripping me. Am thinking of not finishing it and have only ever done that to about 2 other books - one was a Simon R Green, cant remember the other now.

About 80 pages into the first book.......will keep on trying.

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 17:06:54 +0000

The problem I have with this book was that it was a complete rip-off of Dune on numerous levels. If you enjoyed this, read Dune and you'll be blown away.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:28:23 +0000

Yeah, I was a little surprised to see that when I first started reading it - it holds up very well, I think. I can't say that I'm familiar with his later works, but I'll certainly keep it in mind at some point.

By: DeadParrot

DeadParrot — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:33:31 +0000

Shadowline is very early Glen Cook, first published in 1982. It is one of his first novels and published before his major fantasy works. I agree it's a very good and readable space opera, but it does lack the sophistication of his later work.